Dallas PD disciplines 2 dozen officers over offensive posts

DALLAS (AP) — Dallas police officials say more than two-dozen officers face disciplinary measures after they were found to have posted bigoted or other offensive material to social media in violation of the department’s code of conduct, including mocking protesters who were pepper-sprayed..

Four of those officers have been placed on administrative leave because of the extreme nature of their posts.

The findings come after The Plain View Project last month released a database cataloging thousands of bigoted or violent posts by police officers in several states.

More than 1,000 public posts from people identified as current and former Dallas officers were flagged by researchers with the project, which spent two years looking at the personal Facebook accounts of police from Arizona to Florida.

The Dallas posts also included joking about police shooting victims.

CAIR issued a statement saying the organization welcomed the investigation, but worries the posts may be symptomatic of a deeper problem.

“While we applaud the Dallas Police Department for starting an investigation into the officers’ Islamophobic, racist and violent posts, we hope that this is done in a transparent manner and the guilty are dealt with appropriately based on the findings of the investigation,” said CAIR-DFW Acting Executive Director Ekram Haque. “Because these disturbing posts involve such a large number of officers, they are viewed as symptomatic of a deeper problem, and we call on DPD to require a mandatory diversity training of all officers by an independent agency.”

Haque said CAIR offers a booklet, called “A Law Enforcement Official’s Guide to the Muslim Community,” which outlines basic information about Islamic beliefs that are relevant to law enforcement.

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